The invention relates to a method of transferring fluids through a permeable well lining.
Such a method is known from International patent application PCT/EP96/04887.
The well lining known from this prior art reference serves as a sand/gravel screen and therefore has a sieve opening size, which is smaller than the size of the sand/gravel particles that are to be excluded from the wellbore. However, this and other known sandscreens typically only represent a limited flow restriction in order to avoid that the influx of well effluents is inhibited. The permeability of this and other conventional well screens is typically several thousands Darcy and is much higher than the permeability of the surrounding formation which may have a permeability which is less than 50 Darcy, or even as low as 1 mDarcy in carbonate formations.
Therefore, the method of transferring fluid between a reservoir formation and fluid processing facilities at or near the earth surface via a well extending between said formation and facilities, which well is equipped with a permeable well lining, is known from International patent application PCT/EP96/04887.
A problem encountered with production of hydrocarbon fluids from subsurface reservoirs and with injection of steam, water or treatment into such reservoirs is that such reservoirs may be stratified and that some zones may have a significantly higher permeability than other zones so that the transfer of fluid into or from the well is largely concentrated to the high permeability zones.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of transferring fluids through a permeable well lining, which alleviates the problem of an unequal fluid transfer along the length of the lining, in particular if the well lining traverses stratified reservoir zones having different permeabilities.